Chapter 3 Using
Ant with GlassFishTM Server

GlassFish Server is
compatible with Apache Ant versions 1.6.5 or greater. If you don't
have Ant installed, you can download it from the Update Tool. The
Apache Ant Build Tool add-on component supplies Ant version 1.7.1.
For more information about the Update Tool, see Update Tool in Oracle GlassFish Server 3.0.1 Administration Guide.

Variables in the examples in this chapter, such as ${asinstalldir}, reference values defined in build.xml or
properties files.

Setting Up Your Ant Environment

To set up your Ant environment for using GlassFish Server Ant tasks,
you can either define the ANT_OPTS environment variable
or define a target. In both these cases, you must also set the classpath
to point to the sun-appserv-ant.jar file.

Defining the ANT_OPTS Variable

To define the ANT_OPTS environment variable on
UNIX systems, use the following commands, where ${ASINSTALLDIR} is
an environment variable defined to point to the GlassFish Server installation
directory.

To define the ANT_OPTS environment variable on
Windows systems, use the following commands, where %ASINSTALLDIR% is an environment variable defined to point to the GlassFish Server installation
directory.

set ANT_OPTS="-Djava.library.path=%ASINSTALLDIR%\modules"
set CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;%ASINSTALLDIR%\modules\sun-appserv-ant.jar

Defining a Target

The following target element defines the GlassFish Server Ant
tasks and references the sun-appserv-ant.jar file.
You can include this target in your build.xml file.
The ${asinstalldir} in the classpath element
refers to the GlassFish Server installation directory.

Ant resolves properties from top to bottom in Ant build files.
If you define the GlassFish Server Ant tasks at the project level, make
sure that any properties used within the task definitions have been
resolved before the task definitions. For example, the following snippet
defines the sun-appserv-admin task at the project
level:

Attributes of sun-appserv-deploy

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-deploy task.

Table 3–2 The sun-appserv-deploy Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

file

none

(optional if a component or fileset subelement
is present, otherwise required) The component to deploy. If this attribute
refers to a file, it must be a valid archive. If this attribute refers
to a directory, it must contain a valid archive in which all components
have been exploded. If upload is set to false, this must be an absolute path on the server machine.

name

file name without extension

(optional) The display name for the component being deployed.

force

true

(optional) If true, the component is overwritten
if it already exists on the server. If false, sun-appserv-deploy fails if the component exists.

retrievestubs

client stubs not saved

(optional) The directory where client stubs are saved. This attribute
is inherited by nested component elements.

precompilejsp

false

(optional) If true, all JSP files found in
an enterprise application (.ear) or web application
(.war) are precompiled. This attribute is ignored
for other component types. This attribute is inherited by nested component elements.

verify

false

(optional) If true, syntax and semantics
for all deployment descriptors are automatically verified for correctness.
This attribute is inherited by nested component elements.

contextroot

file name without extension

(optional) The context root for a web module (WAR file). This attribute is ignored if the component is not
a WAR file.

dbvendorname

sun-ejb-jar.xml entry

(optional) The name of the database vendor for which tables
can be created. Allowed values are javadb, db2, mssql, mysql, oracle, postgresql, pointbase, derby (also for CloudScape), and sybase,
case-insensitive.

If not specified, the value of the database-vendor-name attribute
in sun-ejb-jar.xml is used.

If no value is specified, a connection is made to the resource
specified by the jndi-name subelement of the cmp-resource element in the sun-ejb-jar.xml file,
and the database vendor name is read. If the connection cannot be
established, or if the value is not recognized, SQL-92 compliance
is presumed.

(optional) If true, causes database tables
to be created for beans that need them. If false,
does not create tables. If not specified, the value of the create-tables-at-deploy attribute in sun-ejb-jar.xml is used.

(optional) If true, and if tables were automatically
created when this application was last deployed, tables from the earlier
deployment are dropped and fresh ones are created.

If true, and if tables were not automatically
created when this application was last deployed, no attempt is made
to drop any tables. If tables with the same names as those that would
have been automatically created are found, the deployment proceeds,
but a warning indicates that tables could not be created.

If false, settings of create-tables-at-deploy or drop-tables-at-undeploy in the sun-ejb-jar.xml file are overridden.

(optional) A deployment plan is a JAR file containing GlassFish Server descriptors.
Use this attribute when deploying an EAR file that lacks GlassFish Server descriptors.

availabilityenabled

false

(optional) If true, enables high availability
features, including persistence of HTTP sessions
and checkpointing of the stateful session bean state.

generatermistubs

false

(optional) If true, generates the static
RMI-IIOP stubs and puts them in the client JAR file.

upload

true

(optional) If true, the component is transferred
to the server for deployment. If the component is being deployed on
the local machine, set upload to false to reduce
deployment time. If a directory is specified for deployment, upload
must be false.

virtualservers

default virtual server only

(optional) A comma-separated list of virtual servers to be deployment
targets. This attribute applies only to application (.ear) or web (.war)
components and is ignored for other component types. This attribute
is inherited by nested server elements.

user

admin

(optional) The user name used when logging into the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

passwordfile

none

(optional) File containing passwords. The password from this
file is retrieved for communication with the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

host

localhost

(optional) Target server. When deploying to a remote server,
use the fully qualified host name. This attribute is inherited by
nested server elements.

port

4848

(optional) The administration port on the target server. This
attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Examples of sun-appserv-deploy

Here is a simple web application deployment script
with many implied attributes:

This example deploys multiple components to two GlassFish Server instances
running on remote servers. In this example, both servers are using
the same admin password. If this were not the case, each password
could be specified in the server element.

This example deploys the same components as the previous example
because the three components match the fileset criteria,
but note that it is not possible to set some component-specific attributes.
All component-specific attributes (name and contextroot) use their default values.

Attributes of sun-appserv-undeploy

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-undeploy task.

Table 3–4 The sun-appserv-undeploy Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

name

file name without extension

(optional if a component or fileset subelement
is present or the file attribute is specified,
otherwise required) The display name for the component being undeployed.

file

none

(optional) The component to undeploy. If this attribute refers
to a file, it must be a valid archive. If this attribute refers to
a directory, it must contain a valid archive in which all components
have been exploded.

droptables

sun-ejb-jar.xml entry

(optional) If true, causes database tables
that were automatically created when the bean(s) were last deployed
to be dropped when the bean(s) are undeployed. If false,
does not drop tables.

If not specified, the value of the drop-tables-at-undeploy attribute in sun-ejb-jar.xml is used.

(optional) If true, deletes all connection
pools and connector resources associated with the resource adapter
being undeployed.

If false, undeployment fails if any pools
or resources are still associated with the resource adapter.

This attribute is applicable to connectors (resource adapters)
and applications with connector modules.

user

admin

(optional) The user name used when logging into the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

passwordfile

none

(optional) File containing passwords. The password from this
file is retrieved for communication with the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

host

localhost

(optional) Target server. When deploying to a remote server,
use the fully qualified host name. This attribute is inherited by
nested server elements.

port

4848

(optional) The administration port on the target server. This
attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks to see if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Examples of sun-appserv-undeploy

Here is a simple application undeployment script with many implied
attributes:

This example demonstrates using the archive files (EAR and WAR,
in this case) for the undeployment, using the component name (for
undeploying the EJB component in this example), and undeploying multiple
components.

As with the deployment process, components can be undeployed
from multiple servers in a single command. This example shows the
same three components being removed from two different instances of
the GlassFish Server. In this example, the passwords for both instances
are the same.

Attributes of sun-appserv-instance

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-instance task.

Table 3–6 The sun-appserv-instance Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

action

none

The control command for the target server instance.
Valid values are start, stop, create, and delete. A restart sends
the stop command followed by the start command.
The restart command is not supported on Windows.

debug

false

(optional) Deprecated. If action is set to start, specifies whether the server starts in debug mode.
This attribute is ignored for other values of action.
If true, the instance generates additional debugging
output throughout its lifetime. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

config

none

(optional, applicable only if action is create) The configuration for the new stand-alone instance.

The configuration must exist and must not be default-config or
an already referenced stand-alone configuration (including the administration
server configuration server-config).

property

none

(optional, applicable only if action is create) Defines system properties for the server instance.
These properties override port settings in the server instance’s
configuration. The following properties are defined: http-listener-1-port, http-listener-2-port, orb-listener-1-port, SSL-port, SSL_MUTUALAUTH-port, JMX_SYSTEM_CONNECTOR_port.

(optional) The user name used when logging into the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

passwordfile

none

(optional) File containing passwords. The password from this
file is retrieved for communication with the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

host

localhost

(optional) Target server. If it is a remote server, use the
fully qualified host name. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

port

4848

(optional) The administration port on the target server. This
attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks to see if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Attributes of sun-appserv-component

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-component task.

Table 3–8 The sun-appserv-component Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

action

none

The control command for the target server instance.
Valid values are enable and disable.

name

file name without extension

(optional if a component or fileset subelement
is present or the file attribute is specified,
otherwise required) The display name for the component being enabled
or disabled.

file

none

(optional) The component to enable or disable. If this attribute
refers to a file, it must be a valid archive. If this attribute refers
to a directory, it must contain a valid archive in which all components
have been exploded.

user

admin

(optional) The user name used when logging into the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

passwordfile

none

(optional) File containing passwords. The password from this
file is retrieved for communication with the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

host

localhost

(optional) Target server. When enabling or disabling a remote
server, use the fully qualified host name. This attribute is inherited
by nested server elements.

port

4848

(optional) The administration port on the target server. This
attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks to see if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Components can be enabled or disabled on multiple servers in
a single task. This example shows the same three components being
enabled on two different instances of the GlassFish Server. In this example,
the passwords for both instances are the same.

The sun-appserv-admin Task

Enables arbitrary administrative commands and scripts to be
executed on the GlassFish Server. This is useful for cases where a specific
Ant task has not been developed or a set of related commands are in
a single script.

Subelements of sun-appserv-admin

The following table describes subelements for the sun-appserv-admin task. These are objects upon which this task acts.

Attributes of sun-appserv-admin

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-admin task.

Table 3–10 The sun-appserv-admin Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

command

none

(exactly one of these is required: command or explicitcommand) The command to execute. If the user, passwordfile, host, port,
or target attributes are also specified, they are
automatically inserted into the command before execution. If any of
these options are specified in the command string, the corresponding
attribute values are ignored.

explicitcommand

none

(exactly one of these is required: command or explicitcommand) The exact command to execute. No command
processing is done, and all other attributes are ignored.

user

admin

(optional) The user name used when logging into the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

passwordfile

none

(optional) File containing passwords. The password from this
file is retrieved for communication with the GlassFish Server administration
instance. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

host

localhost

(optional) Target server. If it is a remote server, use the
fully qualified host name. This attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

port

4848

(optional) The administration port on the target server. This
attribute is inherited by nested server elements.

asinstalldir

see description

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Examples of sun-appserv-admin

Here is an example of executing the create-jms-dest command:

<sun-appserv-admin command="create-jms-dest --desttype topic">

Here is an example of using explicitcommand to
execute the create-jms-dest command:

The sun-appserv-jspc Task

Precompiles JSP source code into GlassFish Server compatible Java
code for initial invocation by GlassFish Server. Use this task to speed
up access to JSP files or to check the syntax of JSP source code.
You can feed the resulting Java code to the javac task
to generate class files for the JSP files.

Attributes of sun-appserv-jspc

The following table describes attributes for the sun-appserv-jspc task.

Table 3–11 The sun-appserv-jspc Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

destdir

none

The destination directory for the generated Java source files.

srcdir

none

(exactly one of these is required: srcdir or webapp) The source directory where the JSP files are located.

webapp

none

(exactly one of these is required: srcdir or webapp) The directory containing the web application. All
JSP files within the directory are recursively parsed. The base directory
must have a WEB-INF subdirectory beneath it.
When webapp is used, sun-appserv-jspc hands
off all dependency checking to the compiler.

verbose

2

(optional) The verbosity integer to be passed to the compiler.

classpath

none

(optional) The classpath for running the JSP compiler.

classpathref

none

(optional) A reference to the JSP compiler classpath.

uribase

/

(optional) The URI context of relative URI references in the
JSP files. If this context does not exist, it is derived from the
location of the JSP file relative to the declared or derived value
of uriroot. Only pages translated from an explicitly
declared JSP file are affected.

uriroot

see description

(optional) The root directory of the web application, against
which URI files are resolved. If this directory is not specified,
the first JSP file is used to derive it: each parent directory of
the first JSP file is searched for a WEB-INF directory,
and the directory closest to the JSP file that has one is used. If
no WEB-INF directory is found, the directory
from which sun-appserv-jspc was called is used.
Only pages translated from an explicitly declared JSP file (including
tag libraries) are affected.

package

none

(optional) The destination package for the generated Java classes.

asinstalldir

see description

(optional) The installation directory for the local GlassFish Server installation,
which is used to find the administrative classes. If not specified,
the command checks if the asinstalldir parameter
has been set. Otherwise, administrative classes must be in the system
classpath.

Example of sun-appserv-jspc

The following example uses the webapp attribute
to generate Java source files from JSP files. The sun-appserv-jspc task is immediately followed by a javac task,
which compiles the generated Java files into class files. The classpath value in the javac task must be all
on one line with no spaces.

The sun-appserv-update Task

Enables deployed web applications (EAR files) and
modules (EJB JAR, RAR, and WAR files) to be updated and reloaded for
fast iterative development. This task copies modified class files,
XML files, and other contents of the archive files to the appropriate
subdirectory of the domain-dir/applications directory,
then touches the .reload file to cause dynamic
reloading to occur.

This is a local task and must be executed on the same machine
as the GlassFish Server.

The wsimport Task

Generates JAX-WS portable artifacts for a given WSDL file. Portable
artifacts include service endpoint interfaces (SEIs), services, exception
classes mapped from the wsdl:fault and soap:headerfault tags, asynchronous response beans derived from the wsdl:message tag, and JAXB generated value types. After generation,
these artifacts can be packaged in a WAR file with the WSDL and schema
documents along with the endpoint implementation and then deployed.

Attributes of wsimport

The following table describes attributes for the wsimport task.

Table 3–14 The wsimport Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

wsdl

none

Specifies the name of the WSDL file.

destdir

current directory

(optional) Specifies where to place the output generated classes.

sourcedestdir

current directory

(optional) Specifies where to place generated source files.
Used only if the keep attribute is set to true.

keep

false

(optional) If true, keeps generated files.

verbose

false

(optional) If true, outputs compiler messages.

binding

none

(optional) Specifies external JAX-WS or JAXB binding files.
JAX-WS and JAXB binding files can customize things like package names
and bean names. More information on JAX-WS and JAXB binding files
can be found in the customization documentation included with this
release.

extension

false

(optional) If true, allows vendor extensions
not in the specification. Use of extensions may result in applications
that are not portable and may not interoperate with other implementations.

wsdllocation

none

(optional) Specifies the value of @WebService.wsdlLocation and @WebServiceClient.wsdlLocation annotation
elements for the generated SEI and Service interface. This should
be set to the URI of the web service WSDL file.

catalog

none

(optional) Specifies the catalog file to resolve external entity
references. Supported formats are TR9401, XCatalog, and OASIS XML
Catalog. Additionally, the Ant xmlcatalog type
can be used to resolve entities.

package

none

(optional) Specifies the target package, overriding any WSDL
and schema binding customization for package name, and the default
package name algorithm defined in the JAX-WS specification.

Example of wsimport

The following example generates client-side artifacts for AddNumbers.wsdl and stores .class files
in the ${build.classes.home} directory using the custom.xml customization file.

(applies to The sun-appserv-instance Task only, optional) Deprecated. If action is
set to start, specifies whether the server starts
in debug mode. This attribute is ignored for other values of action. If true, the instance generates additional
debugging output throughout its lifetime.

upload

true

(applies to The sun-appserv-deploy Task only, optional) If true, the component
is transferred to the server for deployment. If the component is being
deployed on the local machine, set upload to false to
reduce deployment time.

virtualservers

default virtual server only

(applies to The sun-appserv-deploy Task only, optional) A comma-separated list of virtual servers
to be deployment targets. This attribute applies only to application
(.ear) or web (.war) components
and is ignored for other component types.

Examples of server

You can control multiple servers using a single task. In this
example, two servers are started, each using a different password.
Only the second server is started in debug mode.

You can deploy multiple components to multiple servers (see
the The component Subelement) . This
example deploys each component to two GlassFish Server instances running
on remote servers. Both servers use the same password.

The component Subelement

Specifies a Java EE component. Allows a single task to act on
multiple components. The component attributes override
corresponding attributes in the parent task; therefore, the parent
task attributes function as default values.

Attributes of component

The following table describes attributes for the component element.

Table 3–16 The component Attributes

Attribute

Default

Description

file

none

(optional if the parent task is The sun-appserv-undeploy Task or The sun-appserv-component Task) The target component. If this
attribute refers to a file, it must be a valid archive. If this attribute
refers to a directory, it must contain a valid archive in which all
components have been exploded. If upload is set
to false, this must be an absolute path on the
server machine.

name

file name without extension

(optional) The display name for the component.

force

true

(applies to The sun-appserv-deploy Task only, optional) If true, the component
is overwritten if it already exists on the server. If false,
the containing element’s operation fails if the component exists.

precompilejsp

false

(applies to The sun-appserv-deploy Task only, optional) If true, all JSP files
found in an enterprise application (.ear) or
web application (.war) are precompiled. This
attribute is ignored for other component types.

You can enable or disable multiple components. This example
demonstrates disabling multiple components using the archive files
(EAR and WAR, in this case) and the component name (for the EJB component).

The fileset Subelement

Selects component files that match specified parameters. When fileset is included as a subelement, the name and contextroot attributes of the containing element must use
their default values for each file in the fileset.
For more information, see http://ant.apache.org/manual/Types/fileset.html.